


This is a Lesson

by 94BottlesOfSnapple



Category: Marvel Cinematic Universe, The Avengers (Marvel Movies), The Incredible Hulk (2008)
Genre: Anxiety Attacks, Gen, Post-Traumatic Stress Disorder - PTSD, Suicide Attempt
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2015-06-04
Updated: 2015-06-04
Packaged: 2018-04-02 21:41:19
Rating: Not Rated
Warnings: Creator Chose Not To Use Archive Warnings
Chapters: 1
Words: 1,876
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/4074820
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/94BottlesOfSnapple/pseuds/94BottlesOfSnapple
Summary: <blockquote class="userstuff">
              <p>"In case you need to kill me but you can't! I know! I've tried! ... I got low. I didn't see an end. So I put a bullet in my mouth, and the Other Guy spit it out!"</p>
<p>Bruce Banner intends to find a way out. Permanently. </p>
<p>But his alter-ego wants no part of that. And though he's no genius physicist, the Hulk is a firm teacher.</p>
            </blockquote>





	This is a Lesson

**Author's Note:**

> Ok, so this is based partially on the deleted scene from the '08 Hulk movie, but I've played around with the actual details of that scene, because I wasn't quite satisfied with them, and I also wanted them to match up better with the Avengers quote.

The air in Greenland was biting, but the heat in Bruce Banner’s veins distilled the cold until it vanished under his intense struggle to slow his heartbeat. The cold helped, a little. It would help more once he was out in it, instead of sequestered away behind glass and metal. The cab of the truck smelled like fish and burnt cedar, and the musk of sweat. It seemed the driver – whose name he realized he hadn’t learned – was a little overheated in his parka, but Bruce wasn’t sure if he was too hot or too cold, himself. The intensity, the wrongness of what he was about to do thrummed under his skin. Forbidden fruit. It was terrifying. It was exciting. Almost the feeling he’d had when he began that disastrous experiment on himself in the first place. And yet, somehow different. Like _safety_ – instead of success, instead of victory – was just in his grasp, just brushing the pads of his fingers, so close.

But he had to be away from people, as far as he could get away, before he tried. Bruce Banner might have been a coward, or a monster, or something worse than both of those things, but he wasn’t an idiot. If he failed, the Hulk – the Other Guy – would be angry. Enraged. And he didn’t want anyone in the way of that. Enough people had been put in the Hulk’s firing line just to get to Greenland. It… It hadn’t been an attempt without its casualties. He hunched his shoulders slightly, hunkering down further in the passenger seat.

The man driving the truck glanced at him every so often, Bruce could see; his reflection in the window shifted slightly when he did. But the physicist kept his own eyes trained on the window. Let the man think he was crazy. Some ridiculous American thrill-seeker, some idiot heading out into the wilderness to get himself killed. That was what he was, essentially, if not in the way the other man expected. Just someone looking for another way to die.

When the road ended, Bruce shrugged on his pack, with snowshoes strapped to it, and opened the cab door. He was met with a slap of icy air to the face, and it was beautifully refreshing. After several steps off the road, Bruce turned and waved goodbye.

He sent the man in the truck a slight smile, and said only, “Thank you,” before striding off into the snow and the trees.

It was stupid, but part of him wanted to be remembered like that. Not as a genius physicist, not as a man who’d made a terrible mistake, definitely not as a monster – just some stranger passing by, the kind of person who smiled and waved and said thank you. An anonymous, decent person. The thought made him smile grimly.

His pack was heavy, and the struggle of stomping through the deep snow only made it feel heavier. But Bruce needed it to get as far as he could, and to present the illusion that he planned to return. As if anyone would care about that. Still, word of a crazy hiker with no pack might have gotten back to Ross; the man was all but feral to catch the Hulk, and had chased down crazier leads to find Bruce. After what the Hulk had done – what _Bruce_ , really, had done, because he couldn’t erase his own guilt even with justifications, with separating Himself from the Other Guy so strictly in his mind – what he had done to Betty—

Bruce doubled over, pressing the heel of his palm to his sternum and trying not to gasp his breaths. He squeezed his eyes shut to focus harder on the drumbeat echoing through his veins. Breathe. _Breathe_. In control. Slow. It was several minutes before he could open his eyes again, seeing the trembling of his gloved hands through the protective goggles. It was a complete tossup if it was the cold or the guilt that made them shake that way.

After what he’d done to Betty, Bruce couldn’t blame Ross for his singleminded determination to capture him. But he couldn’t let the military get their hands on the monster, either. And he wouldn’t let their chase, their clashes, get anyone else hurt. Ross couldn’t stop the Hulk, no matter how big his guns were, no matter how much Stark Industries technology he smothered his tanks in. It was up to Bruce to stop them both, for everyone’s sakes. And he was so, so tired.

“C’mon, Banner,” Bruce told himself softly, barely able to catch his own voice above the howling of tundra wind. “Not much farther. You’re so close.”

So close to it all being over. No more weight, no more guilt, no more violent green flashes blurring his vision. Just peace and quiet where no one and nothing could hurt him, where he couldn’t hurt them. Buried in twenty feet of snow in an Arctic wasteland where Ross would never find him, where his toxic blood would be hidden away forever. The missing link.

At last, he shrugged the pack off, wind whipping snowflakes and ice into his face. Cold was beginning to seep through his layers, numbing his hands, and he already couldn’t feel his unprotected cheeks. The monster in the back of his brain was curled away from the subzero temperatures and Bruce knew he’d made the right decision. The Hulk preferred a tropical environment, was more likely to emerge, to push forward and demand there. Heading north had been a good choice. Bruce blew a ragged cloud out into the frozen air and strode across the tundra. Head bowed, hands tucked in the pocket of his parka, fingers wrapped around the gun inside like a talisman.

_ This is your freedom. This is all the options you have left, Bruce. This once last choice. And it’ll be so, so easy. You know it will. Because nothing, nothing about death can be worse than the life you’re already living. _

_ It’ll be so easy. You just have to move one finger. You just have to let yourself fall. _

When he looked up again, dazed and trembling, there were no landmarks in sight. Just ice and snow as far as the eye could see, and he knew that he’d come far enough at last. He clenched his empty hand into a fist. _Determination_. And then he threw off the hood of his parka, tossed the goggles away, and pulled out the gun.

It looked so small. A revolver, with a single bullet in its chambers. He almost laughed, thinking about Russian roulette, but this was _so much easier_. So much easier, because he knew just where to find that bullet and he knew just where to put it. Bruce held out his arm, and cocked the gun.

Betty stared up at him from the floor, eyes wide and full of tears. There was blood splattered all over her face. Her blood.

“Bruce…?” she asked, and her voice was half a sob.

Instead of snow there were bullets pelting him, the rat-tat-tat of machine guns, Ross’s snarling voice from all his nightmares. A monstrous roar. The mangled corpses of two state troopers.

Bruce stumbled several steps backwards and only barely managed to keep his feet. He couldn’t _breathe_ , everything was collapsing inward, towards his heart, which was beating too fast. The pulse engulfed him, pounding against the back of his eyes, the inside of his arms, almost painful in its speed and intensity. Too fast, _too fast_ , he had to, before—

The heat was already overtaking him, green veins racing up and down his arms like fire, and _there was no time_. He turned the barrel of the gun back towards himself, opened his mouth, and just as everything flashed vibrant green he managed to squeeze the trigger.

 

The report of the gun echoed, longer than it should have, and for a long and terrifying and oh-so- _beautiful_ moment, Bruce thought he’d finally won.

And then his eyes, their eyes, opened again.

 

The Other Guy often came to him in acid-bright colors and deafening noise, snatches of a trip on the world’s worst drug. But this was startling in its clarity, like a huge green hand gripping the back of his head and slamming his face into the glass separating consciousness from control.

An order.

**_Look at this. I’m giving you a lesson._ **

The bullet, warped and flattened, was spat into a giant’s palm, then flung as far as it would go, whistling in a high arc through the air. The gun was crushed in the other hand, tossed to the ground, and mangled further with a single stomp from a bare green foot.

The message was brutal and crushing and clear.

**_Don’t_ ever _try that again._**

 

And then everything was back to a whirlwind of rage and sound and blinding brightness. Bruce sank into it like he was drowning, released and tossed aside to fall away from the surface. There was a roar and the shattering of ice shelves and they were a monster again.

_At least_ , he managed to think with what little part of his mind was still his own, _there’s no one here to hurt_.

At least he’d finally done _something_ right.

 

When Bruce Banner opened his own eyes again, it was night and he was lying on his back somewhere tropical; warm and secluded and safe and alive.

_ He’ll never die.  _ We _will never die. There is no out. There is no end, Bruce. That was your last chance, your last option, and it_ didn’t work _._

The muggy air was hard-pressed to reach his lungs. All Bruce could feel was the weight of going on crushing down on him. Of continuing, alone, forever. Of being this, a monster, forever. Of running, forever. A prisoner in his own body, forever.

Somewhere in the corner of his mind, Bruce knew he was hyperventilating. He also registered his fingers starting to tingle, a secondary symptom of the breathing imbalance. He was liable to have another incident, if he couldn’t get himself under control.

But was there really any control? His chance, to put an end to things, to stop being hunted, had been a spectacular failure. His mind was not his own. Nothing was _his own_ anymore, all of it tainted green and yet he was still _alone_ , still with no support or companionship. He had lost _everything_.

When black spots started to fill his vision, Bruce was almost glad. Almost. He didn’t want to go to pieces or think or try, he just wanted everything to _stop_ , if only for a little while. The pounding anxiety had spread from his hands outward, thrumming like static under his skin, and he wasn’t sure how much more he could take before passing out or hulking out.

But then, with a rush, there was a big green hand lifting the stone of helpless panic from his chest – just slightly – and Bruce could breathe again. He gasped, then managed deeper breaths. Everything slowed. The spots faded. A distant roar filled his ears.

**_We only have each other, Banner._ **

And Bruce could only think _of course _ with a half-hysterical laugh as he stared dizzily up at the stars.


End file.
